Dean was late. It was eight-thirty in the evening, and he hadn't shown up; he didn't even call. Even though he wasn't the most punctual person in the world, two hours late without a heads-up was just not okay.

In the first hour, I was just slightly annoyed. I snuggled on the couch with the remote control in my hand, switching from one TV channel to another. By eight o'clock on the dot, anger crawled in me, and that my tummy had been screaming for food didn't help my situation.

After several attempts to call him, which went straight to his voicemail, worry started to creep in. I considered calling Susie to find out what was the deal with Dean, but I decided to wait a bit more while nuking the leftover pasta from last night. At this point, I was not going to wait for him. I needed to feed myself.

It was past nine when my phone rang. As big as life and twice as ugly, Dean's name blinked on my screen, and I was so tempted to ignore it, but my curiosity won.

"Jen..." He sounded breathless. "I'm so sorry. I left my phone in my car."

"I see."

"I was, I-uh," he stammered, "I got caught in a situation."

"Of course."

"Okay. You're mad."

"Wow, very observant of you."

"Wait. I'm almost there."

"Oh, don't bother! Just go home, Dean. It's late."

"Jen–"

And I hung up before he finished his line and switched my phone off. He'd better not come if he knew what was good for him, but of course, he didn't. Five minutes later, the banging on the front door rattled my whole flat.

"Jen! Open the door!"

He had no idea how much noise he was making in the hall this late. And how the hell did he get into the building, to begin with? I swear this boy was going to give me gray hair before I turned twenty-two. I stormed to the door and yanked it open.

"Are you out of your damn–" My mouth hung open at the sight before my eyes.

Dean's hair was disheveled, and his left jaw was bruised and beginning to swell. The white shirt that clung to his torso was partly torn and covered with dirt. Or was it blood stains? As my eyes trailed down, I saw his ruined knuckles, and dry blood all over. "What the hell, Dean?"

"Can I come in and wash up a bit?" he pleaded.

Speechless, I stood aside to let him in and watched him head to the bathroom. I stuck my head into the corridor to make sure no one followed him and closed the door behind me. He stood shirtless by the basin when I joined him, washing his face and hair. Without asking, he opened the cabinet under the basin to retract the first aid box and groaned when he poured an antiseptic wash over his knuckles.

Dean glanced at me. "I owe you an apology."

I stood by the door, leaning on its frame and watching him. "The hell you do," I said. "Now I want to know what happened, and whose blood is on your hand?"

He looked down at his knuckles. "It's just a little incident at work."

"What incident? Did you punch your colleague's face or something? Dean, did someone get hurt?"

He flinched. "Let's go talk on the couch?"

"Fine. Let me get you something to wear."

No matter how pissed I was at him, I always got nervous every time I saw him like this. Dean was always physical, and it was just a matter of time until he got a serious injury from a fight.

He sat on the rug when I was back, leaning back on the couch with his hands on his head. When I placed a clean shirt behind him, he didn't pick it up.

"I'm not clean enough to sit on the sofa. Need to shower after we talk."

"Okay." I plopped down beside him, trying not to stare at his bare chest. I'd seen him shirtless countless times before, especially when we went swimming together, but never when we should have had our clothes on, like now. "Now spill," I ordered. "You owe me an explanation."

"I got into a fight with this dude at work. So, we've been having a disagreement for a while, but this time he pushed it a bit too far. So I bashed his ugly face. He deserved it, though. I've warned him."

"What was the fight about?"

He frowned, eyes on the ceiling. "I...he...we had a deal a while back that he would stop messing around with a person on my team; a female member. Months ago, I saw him do it again, and then I confronted him. He said it wouldn't happen again, so I let it slip because I trusted him. I used to respect him, though. Today I found out he'd been at it all this time behind my back, and it was just too far. He needed a stronger reminder."

I blinked, not expecting this kind of drama at his work. "What did he do to her, exactly?"

"He seduced her until she gave in. I mean, he's married, so it's obvious, you know, he was taking advantage of her, right?" he replied, glancing at me.

I'd never heard of Dean being close with a female colleague, let alone taking her under his wing. Susie would have talked about her if that was the case. "Are you close to this woman?"

"Pretty much. Oh, no, it's not like what you think. Jeez. She's like twenty years older than I am, but she's on my team. But anyway, the details don't matter now. The bottom line is that man broke our deal, and I needed to teach him a lesson." He clenched his fist, making his bloody bruises more prominent.

My brain was still trying to make sense of everything, but my eyes were fixed on his knuckles. "Was it his blood?"

He followed my gaze. "No. It was mine. I did punch him in the nose though, but as much as I wanted to ruin the rest of his face, I stopped and hit the wall instead."

I sighed in relief. "You really scared the shit out of me when you showed up like that. What the hell, Dean?"

"I'm sorry." He looked at me sheepishly. "And I was such a dick to stand you up like that. I should have called."

"Yeah you should," I mumbled.

"Hey." He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "I am sorry, Jen. I promise I will make it up to you. Okay?"

And it was just like that. My anger disappeared into the thin air once I was in his arms. Ignoring the fact he was still bare-chested, I leaned in and rested my head on his shoulder, feeling the tension slowly leaving my body. Dean often annoyed the crap out of me, but my forgiveness was just three words away. I just couldn't stay angry at him, no matter how much I wanted to punch him square in the face.

He rested his cheek on the top of my head and sighed. That was when I caught the strong mixed scent of stress, sweat, dirt, and iron.

I scrunched my nose and pulled away. "You stink!"

"Tell me something I don't know." He cackled and tried to pull me to him again, but not fast enough.

"Get your ass to the shower now," I said before heading to my bedroom to grab him a clean towel. "At least, Susie won't need to see how fucked up you look right now."

"Right, about that. Can I crash here tonight?" he asked. "I'm not in the mood to answer her twenty-one questions right now. Her anxiousness is getting under my skin these days."

"She's just worried about you. And I can't blame her."

"You're worried about me, too, but you never pushed it."

I was back in front of him, throwing the towel at his face, but he caught him in time. "That's different, you dimwit. She's your girlfriend! It's her job to worry about you and to push you to the edge."

He shot me a glare. "Being with me isn't a job."

"Whatever. You two clearly have a problem right now. You should focus on that more than getting yourself into a fight with someone at work. It's been difficult for her since the breakup."

He rolled the towel. "I don't know, Jen. Sometimes it feels like our decision to move in together wasn't a good idea, after all. It didn't help her with her problem."

I sighed. I did tell him to think twice before deciding to move in with her last Christmas, but now I didn't want to be that friend who said "I told you so" when he least needed it. "You should really try to work it out. But okay, you can sleep here. Just for tonight. I prefer not to have problems with Susie."

"I know you're an angel sent from above." Dean grabbed the t-shirt behind him and checked it briefly. "This isn't Tom's, is it? I'd rather wear my dirty shirt than wear his stupid stuff."

I rolled my eyes at his remark, throwing myself onto the sofa. "It's yours, dummy. You left it last summer after that silly barbecue party."

Dean never liked Tom for some reason. Heck, he never liked any guy I had dated before. Tom was the Barista at the campus coffeehouse in my freshman year, and Bob, his cousin, introduced me to him. We dated for over a year before we agreed to end it since he had to move away for another job offer. During our time together, he complained from time to time about Dean acting like a butthole at him, while Dean called it a brotherly instinct to protect me.